Manchester, UK to get ‘Biospheric’ urban farm at July festival

The Biospheric Project is transforming a derelict mill on the banks of the River Irwell into a thriving agricultural space.

Orchards, crops and a fish farm will fill the empty spaces of a former printworks as the Biospheric Foundation comes to Salford.

By Christopher Arden
The Guardian
March 1, 2013

Excerpt:

In the world’s first industrialised city, Vincent Walsh is hoping that Manchester will now become “the first biospheric city”, in his flagship project transforming a disused printworks in a deprived area of Salford into a state-of-the-art urban farm and research centre.

Walsh, founder and director of the Biospheric Foundation, has teamed up with Manchester International Festival as part of its 2013 programme of events, to create a project that educates communities about sustainable food production.

Schools and families will be able to visit this old three-storey mill turned agricultural space once it opens on 5 July. By then, Walsh hopes the former industrial monument will be teeming with sustainable food production – an outdoor forest of fruit trees, plants growing on the roof, and an aquaponics technology system that cultivates fish and plant-life in a semibiotic environment.

At a time when people are growing increasingly distrustful of their food suppliers, the not-for-profit initiative is attempting to reconnect inner-city dwellers with agricultural methods, by providing them with the skills to grow their own food in their back yards.